“St. Valentine” by Disasterpeace. Such a wicked break-up track. You can hear the splash of tires running across nearby puddles, and feel the exhaustion in your bones and the cold in your lungs as you walk home in the rain without an umbrella.
Just a week left for our Blip Festival 2008 giveaway!
See also: “Ensis” by Disasterpeace
[Comment to enter our chiptune contest — you can win a copy of the two-disc Blip Festival 2008 album!]
JC had a chance to interview Yoshiro Kimura, the designer behind Chulip and Little King’s Story, at TGS. Naturally, he used his time with the developer wisely by asking about LKS’s recent Japanese contest tie-in with Burger King:
The contest winner, Suyama-san, as part of his prize, he got a hundred burgers, right?
In addition to the one hundred burgers, he also got a hundred bananas, and one hundred onsen [hot springs] tickets too. It was a tie-up with Burger King. Because the winner was the king, he needs to have the one hundred burgers, one hundred bananas, one hundred spa tickets.
Did he get that all at once?
Yes. (laughs) First, we thought of having a kind of board with an illustration with one hundred burgers and one hundred bananas, but we thought that was kind of boring, so we said, “No, bring one hundred bananas and bring one hundred burgers, so we really brought one hundred bananas and one hundred burgers.” The winner is still eating bananas by the time we’re talking right now.
And the bananas are a little…
(translator) Yeah, they’re black.
Has that inspired you to make a game specifically designed to appeal to an advertiser?
First, I made the game, and then after I made the game, “Okay, we can make a tie-up with this sponsor.”
Like, maybe a character just happens to really love Coca-Cola.
Maybe next time.
God, I wish I could’ve sat in on this interview and added my own goofy questions: “What’s the deal with Burger King’s chicken nuggets/tenders? They’re kind of terrible, aren’t they? How do you even mess up chicken nuggets?”
Kimura also gave away a few interesting details, admitting that he’s working on No More Heroes 2 as a producer (he also helped design the original No More Heroes).
See also: Little King’s discount
As we wait for Atlus’ official Shiren 3 (Wii) localization due next Spring and Xvirus’ unofficial Shiren DS 2 (a remake of the second GBC game) translation patch, the latest Famitsu revealed Shiren 4 for DS, releasing in Japan this Winter.
Here’s what I’ve picked up about the game so far:
Please keep in mind that my Japanese isn’t as advanced as JC’s — my translation skills being limited to using Babel Fish — so it’s possible some of my details are inaccurate.
I’m also unsure about the new anime-style artwork; it’s not nearly as epic, detailed, or attractive as the art in previous games. Apparently there’s a cowgirl, a pirate, and some sort of sea creature in the game? Perhaps they’re your new companions, replacing Kechi, Oryu, and Pekeji. And, um, is that a floating banana guy at the top right?
I suspect the huge tiger will play a prominent role — I mean, he’s in the logo and all. There will probably be a ton of monkeys, too. Hopefully, they’ll be as useful and memorable as the monkeys in Link’s Awakening and Link to the Past, but I doubt they will be.
Import: Shiren the Wanderer DS 2 ($48.90)
Preorder: Shiren the Wanderer Wii ($39.99)
“Low Tide” by The J Arthur Keenes band. 8bit Collective visitors should already recognize this excellent song, but I’m dropping it here for the rest of you anyway so you can enjoy the chill track and its corny waveform puns.
[Update: Posted the full version. Sorry about that!]
See also: “Starcrossed” from Firebrandboy
[Comment to enter our chiptune contest — you can win a copy of the two-disc Blip Festival 2008 album!]
“Any City” by Alex Mauer. I tried posting this last Friday, but problems with the site prevented anyone from actually hearing it, so here it is again! Also, I sort of featured this song from January’s Pulsewave ROM flyer. This is like your third opportunity to give it a listen — don’t miss out!
See also: “AEPOZXLU” by Alex Mauer
[Via Grafik]
[Comment to enter our chiptune contest — you can win a copy of the two-disc Blip Festival 2008 album!]
Another super-discounted unappreciated game that came out last April, though it’s not at cheap as The Dark Spire. I’m not sure how long this 60%-off deal for ExciteBots: Trick Racing will last, so grab a copy quick. Make sure you click the “Wii Wheel Bundle” edition on the Amazon page to get the right deal.
Other Wii deals to take advantage of today:
[Thanks, Greg!]
New copies of The Dark Spire are now only $4.99 at GameStop and EB Games stores. $4.99!
I feel sorry for Atlus — despite its efforts to make this super hardcore game attractive by throwing in a soundtrack CD (the music is fab), there’s just no way the company attracted more than a handful of gamers with this first-person dungeon crawler.
The Dark Spire’s spartan boxart wasn’t doing the game any favors either. Look at how fast its price dropped after releasing just last April! This is why we’ll never see any of those Wizardry DS releases in the States. :o(
[Via CAG]
“Deafening (Ouch, Fire! remix)” by Leeni and Ouch, Fire!
I initially did not care for this song, nor did I appreciate most of the tracks from 8 Bit Heart Re-Start, Leeni’s guest remix album for 8 Bit Heart. “Animatronic Boy”, the third song on the CD, is much easier to get into, and I contemplated just featuring that tune and calling it a day.
But I gave this re-imagining of “Deafening” (and 8 Bit Heart Re-Start) a few more listens, and now it’s the damn thing. I forgot to mention it when the remix CD first released a month ago, so I’ll make up for that now and tell you all to grab the entire thing for free at CrunchyCo.
Leeni’s original “Deafening” sounds excellent, too, but you’ll have to buy the song or CD to hear it. iTunes has individual 8 bit Heart tracks available for digital download, but if you’re really cool (and I’m confident you are), you’ll buy the physical album from Adam’s Attract Mode shop instead.
See also: Leeni performing “Nice Young Man” at Pulsewave
[Comment to enter our chiptune contest — you can win a copy of the two-disc Blip Festival 2008 album!]
“Regardless” by Dise-a.g.m.
I imagine it’s difficult to convey summer’s passing — the absent voices of children playing outside, the increasing frequency of days you need to put on a hoodie whenever you go out, that extra hint of melancholy you feel in the middle of your morning shower after realizing it’s much darker than it used to be — when the only tools you have to compose this intangible scene are an outdated handheld console and a homebrew sequencer program.
Dise-a.g.m. met that challenge, though, recording a song that pulls at you with its poignancy, recalling three months of memories in just three minutes. This is the track you’ll place behind Dntel’s “(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan” on your next mix cd/tape/playlist.
See also: “Berceuse” by Balún
[Comment to enter our chiptune contest — you can win a copy of the two-disc Blip Festival 2008 album!]
$20 discount on the Black DSi model, and with free shipping, too! I’m sure the sale ends soon, so jump on it!
[Update: Jermaine adds that if you use this coupon code — 6FWJ247J1P44CK — you can grab it for $144.]
That’s less than half what I spent on the Black DSi I imported when the system launched in Japan last November. I could’ve bought a PS3 with that kind of cash!
See also: My Nintendo DSi preview
[Via GoNintendo]
Courtesy of 2 Player Productions, we will give away three copies of 8bitpeoples’ landmark release Blip Festival 2008, a two-disc collection of live songs from all 32 artists/groups that performed at last year’s premiere chiptune show.
The four-day concert’s lineup was nuts — Bit Shifter, Minusbaby, Anamanaguchi, Nullsleep, USK, etc. — so if you follow the micromusic scene, you already know it’s off the chain, off the hook, and off the wickkity doo-dah yezzelbar. Plus, we will also throw in 2PP’s Blip Festival 2006 and 2007 DVDs to sweeten the pot.
To enter, leave a comment in any of our chiptune and music posts over the next two weeks (this includes audio posts and any other music-focused media/links we put up) before October 6th, 11:59 EST. Running our giveaway like this has three advantages:
As usual, please refrain from leaving us crap comments to sift through — we prefer messages that have substance to them and will ignore any frivolous junk.
Look out for more music posts in the future so you can win a copy of the two-disc set. You can listen to my favorite song from the album here, as well as stream the entire deal through the Blip Festival 2008 Bandcamp page.
Before you ask, yes, commenting in this post counts as a giveaway entry. Yezzelbarr!
Multiple: Option is the go-to guy when it comes to odd ports for the DS, having brought over adventure games, visual novels, and even gamebooks to the handheld.
His latest homebrew project adapts Jack Harris and Kim Ellis’ 1989 children’s book The Legend of Zelda: Molblin’s Magic Spear, adding music from Ocarina of Time and a narrator. You can watch the full story (top screen only, text is on the bottom screen) with narration below:
Notice the inconsistency with Link’s sword-hand. Odd! Also, it’s a shame the book didn’t feature Katsuya Terada’s art from the Official Nintendo Player’s Guides.
[Via DCEmu]
Oddly, Prope didn’t mention this soundtrack anywhere in its announcement of the ports. I only happened to see it because Sega announced it.
